Padma and guest judge Dean Fearing, whose last name is like totally a verb, inform the chefs that this Quickfire will test their saucier skills. Everyone must make a new sauce based on one of the five “mother sauces”: béchamel, espagnole, velouté, hollandaise, or tomate. Oh man, I used to looooooooooooove a good sauce drizzled on some delicious meat; these days, I still cherish it, on some fire-roasted veggies or expertly seasoned seitan or tofu. Because I could drink a bucket of béchamel, I paid attention to those dishes.
Edward’s cauliflower milk béchamel over snapper, crab, and oyster looks yum; Heather’s gruyere croquette over apple and ginger compote with Asian slaw is savory + sweet nastiness; Dakota’s is a severely complicated peach-infused béchamel (GROSS!) creation that I gave up trying to type after having to rewind five times. It lands her in the bottom. Edward totally triumphed in Battle Béchamel. The Quickfire winner is Grayson; her charred corn hollandaise over corn ravioli with a blueberry balsamic reduction wins her immunity. For the elimination challenge, everyone has to work together to create a four-course steak dinner for 200 Texans. The winner of this challenge will win a brand new TOYOTA TOYOTA TOYOTA Venza. Two of the four dishes must contain steak, which must be cooked medium rare. OH NO. I’m going to have to watch steaks being cut open to make sure they’re bleeding. :( You can call me unsophisticated, but the only way I could eat steak during my carnivore days was well done. Bloody meat is DISGUSTING. Oh, and I wasn’t alive when Dallas started airing, so I never watched it, so I can’t join in the merriment at serving on the Southfork Ranch.
Sarah, Beverly, Dakota will make soup. Nyesha, Ty-lör, Whitney, and Ponytail Chris are making sirloin; Edward, Paul, and Cute Chris are making ribeyes. Heather, Lindsay, and Grayson are making dessert. (Note: the first- and fourth-course folks are showing some pretty smart strategery; it’s the meat that’ll be judged most harshly.) Heather’s playing it hella safe, making the same cake that was such a hit during the quinceanera challenge. The next day is a flurry of prep. Heather says Beverly’s taking too long with the shrimp. Dakota calls Heather an obnoxious bully. Nyesha is heating up her knives with a blowtorch; I don’t know why, but it looks really damn cool. Dean and Tom quiz everyone about what they’re cooking. (Texasism: instead of po-tay-toe, Dean pronounces it p-tay-tuh. “This is the ptaytuh for the steak?” Lol. The variations in Southern accents tickle me. We Floridians don’t pronounce it that way.) Serving time! Oh yay, the dinner is a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. I’ll refrain from all the nasty meat comments I was gonna make, since this is for a good cause. Eff off, cancer. Eff off and die.
The first course is a tomato, cucumber, and watermelon gazpacho served with an olive oil-poached shrimp. (YUCK. Not my cup of tea.) It mostly goes over well. Second course is grilled New York strip steak carpaccio with mushroom “bacon” and a salad of heirloom tomato and asparagus and pistachio vinaigrette. Tom says the asparagus is undercooked and the dish has no point of view;
Handsome Hugh says he would’ve peeled the tomatoes; Dean says the steak is cooked well. Then there’s a time issue in the kitchen; the steaks were apparently cooked too soon. Uh oh. Third course is grilled ribeye, potato gratin, and braised Brussels sprouts and greens, with bone marrow-red onion compound butter and some unnamed sauce. Dean says the steaks aren’t medium rare. Uh oh. Tom says the potatoes are undercooked. (I’m mad I was robbed of the chance to hear Dean say “ptaytuhs” again.”) Fourth course is a “right side up” Texas peach cake with shaved peach salad and candied pecan streusel. Heather says they didn’t make a very sweet dessert because they wanted to serve something light after that heavy dinner. Wtf? Unless dinner was a 5-lb bag of sugar and a milkshake, DESSERT SHOULD ALWAYS BE SWEET. THE SWEETER THE BETTER. If anybody ever served me a barely sweet dessert, I’d return it with a death threat. Heather’s cake, same as last time, is a crowd pleaser, but Handsome Hugh says the cream needed sugar. Hear hear, Handsome Hugh! Tom says he was ok with it cuz he doesn’t like sweet desserts. EPIC AND EVERLASTING FAIL, TOM. Guess that explains why Gail, not Tom, is the judge on Top Chef Just Desserts. And why I superlove her.
In the top are Nyesha (black girl high five!), Heather, and Ponytail Chris. Between Ponytail Chris’s carpaccio, Heather’s “light as a feather” cake, and Nyesha’s sauce and compound butter … the cake wins. Heather gets the Toyota Venza. Ty’s mis-cooked steak, Whitney’s potato gratin, and Edward’s asparagus-tomato salad land them in the bottom. (Note: no one from the first or fourth courses is in the bottom. Told you that was smart strategery.) Tom is really mad at the boring and poorly cooked food. And … Whitney goes home. I disagree with both those decisions. It was a steak challenge. Ponytail Chris should have won; and Ty should have gone home.
